


you can't wake up (this is not a dream)

by shineyma



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's really a miracle that Mike doesn't miss the sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't wake up (this is not a dream)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm not gonna stop writing Jess/Mike fic anytime soon. Oops.
> 
> Title is from Halsey's _Gasoline_. Thanks for reading!

Sam is talking, asking about the Wendigos, and Mike’s ears are still ringing from the explosion at the sanatorium. So it’s really a miracle that he doesn’t miss the sound.

He doesn’t exactly have time to be thankful, though; he’s too busy snapping right back into the state of panicked determination that’s carried him this far.

“Quiet,” he hisses, grabbing Sam’s arm.

She freezes, mouth snapping shut, and he can see by the look on her face that she hears the same soft scraping he does.

Wendigos don’t sound like this—they’re quick, terrifyingly graceful, and their weird scurry-crawl thing has a distinctive, heart-stopping skittering sound to it. This is different, like shuffling footsteps.

“Matt?” Sam mouths, and he grimaces.

They still don’t know what happened to Matt, and while Mike’d like to believe that this is him—that they haven’t lost _him_ , too—it’d be a hell of a lot of luck for him to end up here, in this particular cavern, out of all the possible tunnels and shafts in this mine.

And their luck has been beyond shitty tonight, so…

“Maybe it’s a Wendigo,” he says, keeping as quiet as possible. They know Wendigos can mimic human sounds, and it’ll be just fucking typical if that extends to footsteps.

Sam’s eyes dart around the room, and Mike follows suit in looking around. There’s nowhere to run, here—just the branching tunnel the sound is coming from and a heavy door that a) leads right back outside, probably to more Wendigos and b) makes a hell of a lot of noise when it opens.

Hypothermia’s starting to be a real concern; he’d prefer not to go back outside if they can help it. And besides, even if that door _wasn’t_ loud enough to wake the damn dead, the sound’s too close—there’s no way they could get through it before whatever it is gets here.

Which just leaves them with the best—and most terrifying—defense against Wendigos.

“Don’t move,” he whispers, and Sam nods slightly.

All there is to do is stand there, frozen (in both senses of the word), and wait to see what’s coming.

And that’s not as easy as it sounds. Mike’s had a terrible fucking night; he’s been thrown around and knocked around and nearly blown up like three times. He’s fallen off cliffs and climbed what felt like half the mountain, and he did way too much of it without a coat.

God, he just wants to sit down for a while and then sleep for a year.

(Actually, what he really wants is to _be_ asleep—to open his eyes and realize this whole thing’s just been a really fucked-up nightmare. But he’s in too much pain for that to be a possibility.)

The point is, he’s hurting. Everywhere. His limbs are heavy with exhaustion, heart pounding painfully—it’s hard enough to hold the damn flashlight steady, let alone the rest of him. But he’s made it this far through the night, and he’s not gonna get Sam killed by wimping out now.

So he stays still, and Sam stays still, and they wait.

They see the light, first, and Mike relaxes the tiniest bit. He hasn’t noticed any Wendigos carrying lanterns around—maybe it really is Matt.

Still, he doesn’t move; just because they haven’t—

His mind stutters to a halt. Fuck, even his _breathing_ stops, because that, that’s—

“Jess,” he says, as she stumbles into view, and he forgets pain, forgets caution, and flat out _sprints_ across the cavern to meet her. “Fuck—Jessica!”

He barely has time to take her in—fucking Christ, she’s in terrible shape, bloody and bruised and moving like something’s broken—before he reaches her, and she more _collapses_ than runs into his arms.

But the end result is the same: he’s holding her, and she’s holding him, and she’s _real_. She’s not a Wendigo or a hallucination or a ghost (ghosts would _not_ be a surprise, at this point)—she’s _Jess_.

“Mike,” she breathes, hands clenching weakly in the back of his coat, and for once in his life, he can’t think of a single thing to say. “You came.”

She’s _alive_. Fuck, how is she alive? The way the mine shaft collapsed…he’s seen how deep those things go, how far below the surface they are, and there’s no way she should’ve survived that fall.

But she did, thank God. She’s here in his arms, breathing shakily but still _breathing_ , and he’s pretty sure she’s crying—but fuck, he might cry, too, if he doesn’t watch it, so who could blame her?

She’s also freezing. He’s hugging her as tight as he dares—not very, not with the way she was moving, shuffling along like every single step hurt—and he can feel her trembling. Her cheek is ice cold against his chest, the chill reaching right through his shirt to give him goosebumps.

Though fuck, that’s not a surprise, is it? She’s found a coat somewhere—and shoes, thank Christ, he can’t even imagine wandering _barefoot_ through this hell-hole—but unless there’s a literal clothing store hidden somewhere in these mines, all she’s got under it is her underwear. If he thought he and Sam were in danger of hypothermia…

But still. Still. He thought she was dead. He was _so sure_ she was dead.

“You’re alive,” he says, just to hear it, and her hands fist a little tighter in his coat. “You’re _alive_. Oh, thank fuck.”

His mind’s caught in a loop of it—she’s alive, how is she alive, thank fuck she’s alive—but he snaps out of it when he hears movement. For a second his heart sinks, sure he’s killed them both with his inattention, and then Sam moves into his vision, and he relaxes.

“Hey, Jessica,” she says, gently laying her hand on Jess’ back. “I am _so_ glad to see you.”

Jess turns her head to look at Sam, but otherwise doesn’t move from her spot in Mike’s arms.

“Hi, Sam,” she says quietly. Then she turns her face back into his shirt, pressing up against him like she wants to just melt into him and disappear, and Mike feels a twinge of unease.

Jess has been the clingy kind of girlfriend from the start, happy to cuddle into his side and hold his hand where Em would’ve rolled her eyes and shoved him away, but this—the silent latching on—is new. If he’d predicted running into her here—which he didn’t, he really fucking didn’t—he would have expected very vocal relief, questions, maybe even sobbing.

These quiet tears aren’t like her, and the smile Sam turns on him is worried enough that he thinks she agrees.

“And I thought _you_ looked bad,” she says lightly. She’s being delicate, probably trying not to scare Jess, but it works well enough to kick his mind into gear.

He wants to just hold Jess forever, soak in that she’s alive, give her all the apologies he owes her—she’s been down here alone for _hours_ , what the fuck, why didn’t he _think_ she might’ve survived, why didn’t he go after her when she fell—but this isn’t the time. He needs to get her out of here and off this mountain, and not just because of the Wendigos.

It’s obvious she needs medical attention, as soon as fucking possible, and she’s not gonna get any down in this mine.

“We need to move,” he says, and Jess shakes her head against his shoulder. “Jessica—hey, look at me.”

It takes a second, but she does.

“I know you’re hurting,” he says. “But we gotta get outta here, okay? It’s not safe.”

“No,” she says. For a second he thinks she’s arguing the idea of moving, but then she goes on, and he realizes she’s agreeing with him. “There are monsters here.”

Her voice is still quiet—and worryingly slow. He wonders if it’s just exhaustion—Christ only knows how long she’s been wandering around down here—or something more. She must’ve fallen a long fucking way; if she hit her head…

He forces himself to stop hugging her, to let go so he can cup her cheeks and tilt her face up towards him. Her eyes are a little unfocused, he thinks, but the pupils are the same size, and that’s what’s important, right?

Fuck, he doesn’t know. What he _does_ know is that it doesn’t matter how badly injured she is or isn’t; they can’t stay here.

“Mike?” she asks, and she sounds so scared and so small that he _has_ to kiss her. Just a little one, as gentle as possible, but it eases a tiny bit of the tightness in his chest—and then, as she kisses him back, a little bit more.

He’s so fucking relieved she’s alive. He can barely even breathe for it.

“We know about the monsters,” Sam offers, while he’s busy trying to get himself under control. “They’re called Wendigos.”

“Wendigos?” Jess echoes, and Mike shakes his head.

“We’ll explain everything later,” he promises. There’s no time for the whole story, and she seems pretty out of it; she might not even hear the details if he gives them to her. “For now, what you need to know is that they see movement. They won’t notice you if you hold still. So when I say don’t move, _don’t_ _move_ , okay?”

Jess blinks up at him. “Okay.”

“All right,” he says, and forces himself to step back. He takes her hand in his and, even though they can’t spare it, gives himself a second to enjoy the way their fingers fit together. He can’t believe she’s alive. “Stay close, okay?”

“Okay,” she repeats, giving him a tiny, painful-looking smile.

He exchanges a worried look with Sam as they start down the tunnel. Jess is moving as slow as she’s talking, shuffling along like every twitch hurts; there’s no way she’ll be able to run if they need to. She probably shouldn’t even be _walking_.

But they don’t have a choice. Now more than ever, they need to find Josh’s body, get the key to the cable car, and get off this fucking mountain. They can’t afford— _Jess_ can’t afford—to wait ‘til dawn for rescue.

“We’re gonna get out of here,” he says, to reassure himself as much as Jess and Sam. “It’ll be fine.”

Neither of the girls says anything. Jess clings a little tighter to his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Every time Mike and Sam go into the mines, all I want is for them to find poor Jess. Even though I know it won't happen, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS hope. The first time I saw poor Jess shuffling along, alone in the mines in nothing but her underwear and an old coat, my heart broke, and I NEEDED to fix it. So...ta-da?


End file.
